Pyrogeography,historical ecology,and the human dimensions of fire regimes |
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| Authors: | Christopher I. Roos David M. J. S. Bowman Jennifer K. Balch Paulo Artaxo William J. Bond Mark Cochrane Carla M. D'Antonio Ruth DeFries Michelle Mack Fay H. Johnston Meg A. Krawchuk Christian A. Kull Max A. Moritz Stephen Pyne Andrew C. Scott Thomas W. Swetnam |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, , Dallas, TX, 75275 USA;2. School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, , Hobart, TAS, 7001 Australia;3. Department of Geography, Penn State University, , University Park, PA, 16802 USA;4. Instituto de Fisica, Universidade de Sao Paulo 1516, , 187 05508‐900 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil;5. Botany Department, University of Cape Town, , Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701 South Africa;6. Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence, South Dakota State University, , Brookings, SD, 57007 USA;7. Environmental Studies Program and Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, , Santa Barbara, CA, 93105 USA;8. Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology, Columbia University, , New York, NY, 10027 USA;9. Department of Biology, University of Florida, , Gainesville, FL, 32611 USA;10. Menzies Research Institute Tasmania and the Rural Clinical School University of Tasmania, , Hobart, TAS, 7000 Australia;11. Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, , Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6 Canada;12. School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, , Melbourne, Vic, 3800 Australia;13. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, University of California, , Berkeley, CA, 94720 USA;14. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, , Tempe, AZ, 85287 USA;15. Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, , Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX UK;16. Laboratory of Tree‐Ring Research, The University of Arizona, , Tucson, AZ, 85721 USA |
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| Abstract: | In our 2011 synthesis (Bowman et al., Journal of Biogeography, 2011, 38 , 2223–2236), we argued for a holistic approach to human issues in fire science that we term ‘pyrogeography’. Coughlan & Petty (Journal of Biogeography, 2013, 40 , 1010–1012) critiqued our paper on the grounds that our ‘pyric phase’ model was built on outdated views of cultural development, claiming we developed it to be the unifying explanatory framework for all human–fire sciences. Rather, they suggest that ‘historical ecology’ could provide such a framework. We used the ‘pyric transition’ for multiple purposes but did not offer it as an exclusive explanatory framework for pyrogeography. Although ‘historical ecology’ is one of many useful approaches to studying human–fire relationships, scholars should also look to political and evolutionary ecology, ecosystems and complexity theories, as well as empirical generalizations to build an interdisciplinary fire science that incorporates human, ecological and biophysical dimensions of fire regimes. |
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| Keywords: | Ecosystems ecology evolutionary ecology historical ecology human– fire dynamics political ecology pyric transition pyrogeography |
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